Tagged by Vboy

Where is your cell phone?
Beside me

Your significant other?
Imma married to my career

Your mother?
Learning

Your father?
Old

Your favorite thing?
Any new gadgets. New one will outshine the old one in a blink

Your dream last night?
I seldom dream

Your favorite drink?
Teh O Ais Limau/Iced Lemon Tea

Your dream/goal?
I'm a short term goal kidda person because I don't like to limit myself.

What room are you in?
Bedroom in Sri Muda

Your hobby?
Photography

Your fear?
Heights

Where do you want to be in 6 years?
Back home in Malaysia/Europe

Where were you last night?
Home

Muffins?
With hot choco please.

Wish list item?
Holiday

Last thing you did?
Reading

What are you wearing?
Nadah, just woke up.

TV?
Nat Geo

Your pets?
I don't like pets because most animals' lifespan is shorter and turtles doesn't interest me at all

Friends?
Loads, heaps, plenty

Your life?
Busy

Your mood?
Needs rest

Missing someone?
Too many to list :P

Drinking?
Yeap

Smoking?
Nope

Your car?
Proton "Ah Beng" Saga, hope to buy a Audi A4

Something you're not wearing?
Everything lor, duh

Your favorite store?
Whichever is the cheapest?

Your favorite color?
Blue

When is the last time you cried?
At least half year ago

Who will resend this?
Not sure

Where do you go to over and over?
Office? Airport?

Five people who email me regularly?
Spam bots

My favorite place to eat?
Nando's

Favorite place I'd like to be at right now?
Europe

Inviting all that would like to do this to give it a shot :D

Worklife

Yesterday something funny happened, colleague A called me to ask me to attend a meeting today. Yes, on a Sunday but that's not the story. I'm used to working on weekends as usual.

Colleague A also went on about colleague X bad mouthing me in front of the boss. I don't mind because it's not real and the boss is the Deputy MD in Australia office. In other words, I don't report to him as I'm a regional staff.

Colleague J is my close buddy in the company, he over heard colleague A trying to jeopardize me from coming back to Malaysia for CNY and he told me. Colleague A even had the nerve to tell me that he actually persuade the boss to allow me to go back.

It's really funny that colleague A and X is doing all these. Or may be this is their nature - Politics of a Chinese company.

I'm more amused with them rather than pissed but surely work would be more effective without all these. Hope that these insecure colleagues in their late 20s can grow up and strive hard to success rather than trying to be on top by pushing everyone down.

ps. Happy Chinese New Year to all readers :)

Misunderstanding ei?

Called up US boss. Spoke a bit and he reaffirmed me that the plan is still very ON. The funny thing is, he said most probably I would be in Canada rather than US.

I'll be joining North America regional office, similar to my current job where I'm in South Pacific region office.

Will keep you guys updated. Sorry for not blogging recently, the internet in Auckland is dead.

ps. I'm back in Bolehland, will fly back to Auckland on the 3rd.

What?!?!?!?!

Today I received a mail from my boss asking me to call him so I did.

When I called him, he had many issues to talk to me. Yada... yada... yada...

Then he said this, "Damien, the plan to US might not push through. Be prepared for that.". He continued with, "Just stay in South Pacific, we will assure that you have plenty of room to grow".

I just said ok. I don't understand why. Called up his boss which is my boss who requested me to transfer.

Me: Is the US reallocation plan not pushing through?
KW: AFAIK, the plan is still on.
Me: But AJ told me that it's not going to happen.
KW: It's still on. I will talk to AJ. Did ZD spoke to you?
Me: Nope.
KW: That smelly pussy! (Erm yeah, he said that literally). Discuss with him later and call me back.
Me: He's sleeping already as its late in US, I'll give him a call tomorrow.
KW: Ok, call me these few days.

It seems something like last time's empty promises. When the thing is suppose to happen, suddenly there are so many twist and turns.

May be it's AJ's plan to ruin my chance to go there. Yes, he a person with many tricks up his sleeves.

Jia You!

I'm a self-motivator. With this job, I'm always alone with most of the team member either in Malaysia or Indonesia. When colleagues share their woes with me, I'll always show them a different angle of the story.

Scene 1
A: There's a lot of problem! Blah blah blah........... yada yada yada.......... Blah blah blah........... yada yada yada..........
Me: If there isn't any problems, we would be out of job won't we? Company hires us to solve problems ;)

Scene 2
A: The customer is crazy! They are asking for this, that, everything! There's so much work to do! Blah blah blah........... yada yada yada..........Blah blah blah........... yada yada yada..........
Me: If the customer don't give you anything to do, it means that we are out of the bid. So it's better to be busy then free ;)

My favorite line, the night is darkest before dawn. The toughest time is when you are near your goal, you are almost there! Don't give up!

Talk Crap Sing Song

In my line of work, I need to always have a good insight on things and answer them spontaneously. Rather than a "Yeah, surely it's affected", below was the conversation I had with the Chairman.

RI: Did the financial crisis affect your company's projects?
Me: Those projects that have been budgeted and underway will not be halted.

It's very unlucky that the financial crisis happened in Q4 which most companies are doing their budgeting for 2009.

With the thought of financial crisis at the back of every manager's head, surely they'll be very cautious on how they spend their money but they will allocate some for CAPEX.

The cake will be smaller but surely there will be a cake. Chinese vendors have always been very aggressive on pricing. During evaluation of a bid, pricing is a big factor and the financial crisis will magnify the weight that pricing carries. Hence, Chinese vendors will have a better upper hand.

In a nutshell, total sales volume may go down but market share will go up.

** Combining some hard facts with sales talk is tough, I'm glad that we had a good discussion after that **

Masaking Alone

NZ is a heaven for cooking. You can easily find fresh milk products, vege, meat and poultry. I do enjoy walking in Foodtown (think Giant/Tesco/Carrefour/Mydin) to look for food that I like and cheap bargains.

While I was shopping to fill up my kitchen, I saw Couscous. I picked it up to read the cooking instructions on the back. It's so easy! Picked it up immediately as I love Couscous.

The problem with cooking alone is that you always end up buying and cooking too much food. I can't just buy one onion right? Hmm, or can I? Remember the beef curry that I had? It was only 1/3 of the beef that I bought. I always try not to have the same food back to back so I prepared couscous and some fried egg with cabbage and tomato. Added some carbonara sauce as I would imagine it will go well with couscous and it did.

The mountain of couscous was too much for lunch so I kept some for dinner. As for dinner, I took another 1/3 of the beef and cooked beef stew. This time, I've simmered the beef stew from 2:30pm to 6:30pm. It taste so much better compared to the already very good curry that I had.

Sigh, now I have too much beef stew...... I guess I'll cook some noodles and have beef stew noodles for lunch tomorrow.

Photography

I had my Alpha since Apr 12, 2008. It's been an expensive hobby since and there's no sign of stopping.

I always find the easy way out when I meet a problem with my photography which is to buy better gears rather than using other techniques first. This leads to another problem, I can't really maximize the equipments that I have since I only used some of the functions.

I love my sexy petal hood lens

One of the secrets of photographer is that we shoot many pictures and we will only show the worthy ones. Most of them will post-process it but I suck in this department so most of my pictures will only go through crop and adjusting color curves.

I seldom post up my pictures because it's not up to mark yet. When I don't know how to improve the pictures, then I will post them up and ask for comments and criticism. Most people are kind and they would give nice comments. I do appreciate when people gives me constructive comments to improve my shots.

Although there are many unpleasant incidents regarding photography, I'll share one funny one. KY Speaks once introduced a nice chinese roast specialty shop in Sri Muda which I don't know even though I stayed there for more than 20 years. Ok la, when I was studying, I always eat at home.

Dropped by the place with my cam (it's always with me) and started snapping the food. When I was snapping, the boss came over and chit chat with me. It went something like this:-

Boss: Are you from the press?
Me: Nope, just shooting so that I can blog about it. I've read another blogger recommending your shop so I came to try it out. Blah blah blah.....
Boss: Owh..... wait, let me garnish the dish properly for you.
** After garnishing the dish with loads of leafy greens **
Boss: Now it's nice to shoot.

So I carry on shooting then makan the delicious "glass" char siew (although its a bit too fatty) and chinese sausage.

After awhile of makan, the boss came back with a plate of roasted goose and he said "this is for you to try, give me the URL next time you are here"

The roasted goose was very nice. Tapao-ed another quarter for my family (of course paid la) and my mom said we'll order half bird for CNY :D

Oh Fark!

I spent more than RM6500 when I was back in Malaysia. It was 19 days so on average I spent around RM350/day.

Rough figures
Camera stuff = RM2800
Clothes = RM700
Food and liquor = RM1700
Others* = RM2300

*ang pow money la, petrol la, toll la, presents la, whatever-I-spend-with-cash

I knew I spent a lot but I wasn't prepared for this colossal figure. I'm ok with camera stuff and clothes but I guess I need to cut down on food and liquor. Time to save, save and save.

Beef Curry

It's so tasty that I had to blog about it immediately!

A few months ago when Gopi was here, he taught me how to cook curry the correct way. After that, I've always wanted to cook curry but I just didn't managed to.

When I came back from Malaysia this time, I told myself I have to cook it once. Yesterday after work, I went to buy some beef and other stuff that I wanted to cook.

I started cooking about 7pm and by 8:45pm, the beef wasn't soft yet. So I scooped out the vegies and had vegetable curry for dinner.

Yeap, lots of vege in the curry. Since I decides what to buy, why not eat healthy right?

Not giving up the beef curry, I allowed it to simmer up till 11pm by constantly adding water and looking after the heat. Waited for it to cool down and chuck it into the fridge.

Today when I came home, I decided to have dry curry instead of normal curry so I heated up the curry and allow it to dry itself off.

As you can see the vegies is already all soft like a proper curry, the beef is so tender that it falls apart just by poking it with a fork. Although not visually appealing, it smells amazing and taste yummilicious! I guess putting less vegies will make it taste/look/smell better :D

Recap of 2008

1. Went on a first company trip to Sri Lanka.
It was a cool party by the pool!

2. Missed the chance to vote.
Anyway, PR won! Rawr~~~!

3. Won some awards in work.
Awards that you shouldn't share about in work due to many people will be envious :(

4. Started to enjoy drinking rather than drinking blindly.
Most people would drink whatever their friend is drinking. Again I would like to emphasize, I've only been drunk once in my whole life.

5. It was a taxing year for me in the office.
Many days without sleep and countless attempt to phyco myself to keep this job.

6. Ended a 1880 days relationship.
It was a hard time for me but I found that many people do care for me. Thanks all, you know who you are.

7. My first increment in my life.
17.5% is fantastic for a first timer :P

8. Found a new hobby - Photography
I guess this expensive hobby will stick with me some a long tmime.

9. I didn't manage to get a diving license.
I was hardly in Malaysia to begin with :(

10. Got my big breakthrough is my company.
It was lots of hardwork and luck.

11. Additional increment after winning project is not kept.
I found out that it was rejected by HR. Well, said my boss.

12. Failed to achieve my savings target.
I really have to work on this.

12. Been to US and UAE.
I would like to visit Taiwan, Japan and Europe. Regardless for work or holiday.

13. Overspend a few times.
Knowing how to earn without enjoying spending is dumb right? This contradict with number 12 :/

14. Knew how to maximize my credit limit for my credit card.
No la, not so serious of over spending la. All for company.

15. Facebook!!!
Need I say more?

16. Rather than giving me an increment, my boss offers me to reallocate.
We still need to discuss about the package.

17. Qantas Silver and Enrich Silver
No more queue!

18. Had an awesome time back home
Attended annual dinner, spent X'mas, my birthday, friend's wedding, New Year with my friends and family is amazing.

End of 2008

2008 didn't end pretty well for me. Mom of a friend and a close colleague passed away. It also made me think about my close friend's dad who died almost 2 years ago.

I'll talk more about my colleague because it's the life that I'm living. Lily joined our team about 6 months ago. Never got the chance to meet her until recently because we are always on the go. She's been supporting my project in New Zealand for some time now but she hasn't got the chance to drop by.

I've always promised her that whenever she's free, I'll arrange her to come here. We've tried to arrange her to come here 3 times but she's tied up with other projects. In the end I told her, lets fly to NZ after New Year.

She met with a freak accident outside her apartment in KL on New Year's Eve. She's a hardworking and bubbly girl, the only daugther in the family and we've only met 2 times. It's so so so so sad.

Everytime during a toast over meals, I'll always insist that my family wishes me Bon Voyage and safe whenever I'm traveling. They would always say things like good fortune and good luck with my career but to me, health and safety is above all.

No matter how much my company or the insurance compensate Lily's family, she will not be with us anymore. May she rest in peace and hope that her parents will be ok.